Steve and I left a cold and cloudy Yulara for Alice Springs.
Uluru and Kata Juta both appeared in the distance and still looked spectacular with the clouds above them.
The road out to the Stuart highway was very wet and quite narrow. There are so many idiots not driving to the conditions and those with the giant campers don’t know how to drive fullstop!!
We made it to the Stuart highway which was a very straight and long road to Alice.
We did a tour 5 years ago to Uluru, Kata Juta and Kings Canyon and on the way we stopped to look at a Mesa which is a mountain with a flat top. I was telling Steve how I remembered learning about Mesas and soon after the same one appeared!
We arrived in Alice Springs, set up camp and relaxed for the afternoon. Driving long kms makes you tired!!
That night it was freezing and raining and the next day was much the same but we decided we’d brave the rain and cold and head to the West Macdonnell Ranges. First we needed coffee!
On the way out of town we stopped at a memorial for John Flynn. He was sent by the church to investigate the needs of the bushmen and women living in the Northern Territory. The Australian Inland Mission was established to improve life for the outback people. He was the first superintendent and through his energy and enthusiasm he brought communication, medical and social services to the region. He also founded the Flying Doctors Service. The rock used for his memorial came from the Devils Marbles. However, as the Devils Marbles was a special and sacred place to the aborigines it was taken back and another rock found elsewhere.
From here we continued to the West Macs. (local lingo)
First we called into Simpsons Gap which was a huge gap in a rock. 😳 It was amazing to look at the high and rough formations.
It had a creek bed running through it. There was only a small amount of water at the far end.
I loved the gum trees on the dry creek bed.
We were even lucky to have rock wallaby to pop out to say hello.
He checked us out for a bit and bounded away across the rocks to hide. They’re so agile!!
More rocks but again pretty spectacular and different.
Next we made a stop at Standley Chasm. More rocks! It was a very short walk to the chasm along a beautiful and lush creek bed.
There was a lovely, green ferny looking plant called a cycad and it is a prehistoric plant.
The chasm was beautiful and said to sparkle when the sun shines on it. Unfortunately we had no sun.
The very short walk cost us $12 each!! 😳
We felt we needed to do the full Macdonnell experience so we had McDonalds for lunch. 😄😄
After lunch we spent the afternoon at the Alice Springs Desert Park. It was organised into the different types of desert environments and had enclosures of the animals found in that environment.
We had a great afternoon looking at all the different animals we’d seen on our travels across the desert up close.
Many of the bird enclosures you could walk through. We saw some gorgeous birds that were so colourful.
There was also a nocturnal house where we saw some bilbys and a numbat.
The bilbys were so cute.
There were lizards, snakes, scorpions, spiders and other small furry mammals. There was a ghost bat eating/sucking a chick!!
Of course there were also kangaroo, emu and dingo enclosures. You could walk through the kangaroo enclosure and it had a big red in there.
We were meant to get a birds of prey show but a thunderstorm came through just before it. As it was outside it was moved to the theatre, so there were no large birds of prey just a couple of cute owls. It was quite entertaining when the handler couldn’t catch the boobook owl because of the different environment and then let the barn owl free before tethering it.
It was a great afternoon.
The following morning we were on our way again. We were umming and arghing about whether we were going to continue along the Outback Way along the Plenty highway because there had been a lot of rain. We decided to give it a go and turned off to head down the road but the decision was soon made for us when we quickly came to a sign showing the Donohue Highway was closed on the Queensland end. 😩
So we continued up the Stuart Highway and plotted a new plan……